


french cat blues

by princegrantaire



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Cats, Comedy, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carl's new neighbour has a massive amount of cats. Carl finds that only slightly suspicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	french cat blues

**Author's Note:**

> this is mostly about cats. longer than my usual fics at least!

Carl tends to get home late, that's nothing new. What _is_ new is the fact that there seem to be several cats staring at him from his neighbour's window. He briefly recalls the neighbour moving in about a week ago but until now he's had no impact on Carl's life, who barely knows he even has neighbours as it is.

  
He hasn't actually seen the guy yet but apparently he's seen Carl, or at least his cats have. There are about fourteen of them, huddled at the window, staring at Carl in a horribly eerie manner.

  
Carl stares back at them for about two minutes before he realizes just how ridiculous this is. Tearing himself away from the window, he goes about finding something for dinner and decidedly not thinking about _those_ cats. Who even has so many cats?

  
-

  
The same thing happens every evening for about a week. It's not until the seventh day of this entire ordeal, when he's actually home in the morning, that Carl realizes the cats are staring at him even then. He had assumed it was somehow related to his arrival home in the evenings but it looks like the cats are completely willing to terrify him during the day as well.

  
He should really invest in a curtain or some blinds, Carl thinks, as he reaches for his phone.

  
"It's happening again," he says, walking even closer to the window and glaring at the cats. One of them is going to lose this staring contest eventually and it's not going to be him.

  
"What? What's happening?" Anthony sounds like he just woke up but Carl is grateful he actually answered the phone.

  
"The cats! I told you about them! Those fucking cats won't stop staring at me!" Carl knows he's sounding quite hysterical but he can't help it. A week of fourteen or more cats staring at him has done nothing to help his natural paranoia.

  
"Did you buy one of those Chinese cats that wave at you?" Anthony asks, sounding distressingly unconcerned.

  
Carl hangs up and nearly shrieks as he realizes there are now about _seventeen_ cats at his neighbour's window. For a moment he desperately wishes he didn't live alone, at least then someone would be able to reassure him that his neighbour's cats aren't actually plotting to assassinate him but unfortunately there isn't anyone to reassure him of anything and he spends half the day sitting on the floor near the window and occasionally peaking at the cats.

  
He's starting to suspect they're taking turns to spy on him, he swears he hasn't seen the same one more than twice, which only raises the question he's been asking himself the whole time: How many cats does his neighbour have?

  
Carl almost considers the possibility that the cats are, in fact, his neighbour, and there isn't an actual person living there at all, just a bunch of cats in a coat masquerading as a human being in order to rent an apartment and torment him forever.

  
-

  
The next day Didz makes him watch the musical ' _Cats_ ' with him. Carl had only been lured out of the house with the promise of alcohol and a day free of cats, the latter which is clearly a lie.

  
"I thought we were gonna watch-"

  
"Carl, this is an intervention," Didz says, in a rather sharp tone.

  
Carl glances longingly at the door and wonders whether Didz would chase him if he tried to run. Then again he's not entirely sure where he would even go, definitely not home, he needs a break from his cat nightmare. _Catmare_ , he thinks and starts laughing.

  
"You've finally lost it, huh?"

  
"No. Shut up. Why do I even need an intervention?"

  
He doesn't even want to hear the answer, knows Didz is probably going to start babbling about this weird fear of cats he's developed and how he doesn't even think cats are capable of killing a person.

  
"Do you think a bunch of cats could kill someone my height?"

  
"Caaaarl!" Didz sounds delighted and immediately hugs him. "See! This is progress, you're finally admitting you're short."

  
Carl takes that as a resounding _yes_ , a bunch of cats could absolutely kill someone his height. The thought isn't reassuring at all and he wonders whether he should spend the night here, or at Gary's, or even John's, anywhere that isn't home. Or maybe he should just stop being a coward and confront his mysterious neighbour.

  
He ends up spending the night in Didz's spare bedroom.

  
-

  
It's not until another week passes that Carl finally gathers enough courage to confront his neighbour. He hasn't slept in nearly three days and he's almost certain he's started hallucinating cats, unless they had somehow managed to sneak into his home. He shudders at the very idea.

  
The thing that actually convinces him to pay a visit to his neighbour is the fact that he sees a person (an actual person!) leaving that house at some point. He doesn't manage to catch any details besides the fact that they were wearing a hat but that is enough for Carl, enough to reassure him that it was an actual human being.

  
Unless his initial theory about a bunch of cats pretending to be a person is correct. He calls John.

  
"If this is about those cats-" John starts and Carl hangs up almost immediately, panicking. He really hadn't realized he had told almost all his friends about the cat issue.

  
Another hour passes and Carl finally decides the time has come. He practically runs to his neighbour's house, knowing he's about to get mauled by some cats or his problem is going to finally be solved.

  
There's nothing particularly remarkable about the door and it's almost hard to imagine this is the house that has haunted Carl's nightmares for nearly two weeks. Mainly it just seems very quiet but Carl's sure that's just the calm before the storm.

  
Finally he knocks on the door and waits, almost shaking. He has to wait a minute or two until the door finally opens, creaking as it does. Carl suddenly finds himself at a loss for words. He's face to face with a very tall young man, wide-eyed and wearing a hat. A young man who is definitely not the cats-masquerading-as-a-human-being creature Carl had envisioned.

  
"I...um...you're not a cat?" Carl says and immediately feels an uncontrollable urge to punch himself.

  
The man smiles, almost apologetically, which baffles Carl because he firmly believes no one should feel sorry for not being a cat, and shakes Carl's hand. He goes through the motions but most of him still hasn't caught up.

  
"Yeah, hi! I'm Peter. You must be my neighbour?"

  
This is Carl's chance to save himself, maybe he can actually make a decent first impression now.

  
"You're not a cat?" he says instead because life itself is against him. "Sorry, I mean...uh...I expected you to be..."

  
"A cat," Peter finishes, clearly about to laugh.

  
"You've got lots? Lots of cats? And they've been staring at me for two weeks? And I've been slowly losing my mind? All my friends hate me? It's not your fault, of course, but if you could just...um...tell them to stop staring at me? That'd be...That'd be great!"

  
He fully expects Peter to slam the door in his face, whatever entertainment he might have found earlier in Carl's inability to form a coherent sentence had surely ended a few seconds ago. Instead Peter laughs and Carl thinks he might be a little bit in love with that sound, which is horrible and tragic because surely it will only end with Carl embarrassing himself even more.

  
"So that's what they've been doing! I really was starting to wonder why they spend all their time at the window. Well now that I've seen you I can't blame them," Peter says, smiling at Carl once again. "Want come in and meet them? Maybe then they'll finally leave you alone."

Carl smiles and nods, as if the cats and this house haven't haunted him for what almost feels like a lifetime. He follows Peter inside, can't deny the almost magnetic pull he feels towards him, even if he knows those cats are probably waiting for him just around the corner.


End file.
